The Springfield School Board relocated its usual meeting place last night due to the large crowd of concerned parents. The contentious subject at hand: how to allocate millions of dollars’ worth of cuts across district 186 for fiscal year 2014. The cafeteria at Grant Middle School was standing room only, as one after another parents explained to the board why they were opposed to cuts and consolidation. One speaker was met with more applause than the rest. Eleven-year-old Collin Taylor from Iles School told the board that after hearing about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut he was scared to attend school. But then he remembered his school’s security guard. And he told the board why he doesn’t want to see him to lose his job. Take a listen to Taylor’s testimony:

District 186 Springfield Schools Superintendent Walter Milton says in the wake of the Connecticut shootings, it’s time to have a conversation about enhancing security at schools. Ten schools in the district already have armed police or off-duty officers. Half of them are middle schools.

MILTON: “I know security is a hot topic right now, I think that if we have something that’s as devastating and the magnitude of what we just experienced as a nation of what happened in Newtown, Connecticut, I think we need to even go a step further and talk about armed security, if you will.”